One Year On

I have had a very bad year – the worst one, certainly health-wise. Due to several flares of my various conditions I had lost my part-time education job, was unable to take up a Masters course that I have wanted to do for years, lost my car that I had also waited years for and there were also family struggles to contend with. My pain increased and became unbearable. Due to last years tsunami of events I developed depression and anxiety. I know that, sadly, depression and anxiety are quite common amongst those of us with Chronic Illnesses and Chronic Pain but this was the first time I had suffered them on a severe and clinical level. Despite my rational brain telling me that it is a common experience and diagnosis and that there is no shame in having those conditions I still felt too uneasy about mentioning it on my blog, of saying it out loud.

I have not posted for almost half a year due being uncomfortable about what to say. I wanted this blog to be a positive and light-hearted space that I, and hopefully a few others, could escape to that focused on the ‘lovely’ side of things. However, I found that I couldn’t face writing as my mood was so far from what I wanted to create and nurture on my blog that I felt I would’ve been a fraud if I tried to carry on as before. I also felt ashamed about cowardly avoiding the topic of depression and anxiety, especially as many on WordPress and other platforms speak powerfully and openly about their experiences in order to support each other and break the stigma attached to those conditions.

I became annoyed at myself as I was happy to talk about my Lupus etc. but when it came to my mental health conditions my reaction was to hide to feel embarrassed. The addition of the word ‘mental’ with regards to illness should make no fundamental difference to the tone of the chronic illness/disability debate, Chronic Illness is just that a chronic illness, but it left me uneasy as I didn’t want to make a ‘drama’ out of it but I felt a bit of a fraud about not recognising these new aspects of my health. In ‘hiding’ I was hindering the great work that many on here have done in educating and de-stigmatizing Mental Health issues and denying to chronicle my ‘true’ experience of Chronic Illness that I hoped would help understanding of our hidden and complex lives. So, my name is Lore and I have Depression and Anxiety, nice to meet you.

Next, I’ll move on to the pretty stuff – beauty boxes!

Oh, strangely,the day I felt able to blog again is the same day exactly one year ago that I started the blog!